If the whole world listens, what will it hear? Find out at the Walker’s observance of World Listening Day, where you can contemplate the sonic environment of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden through a range of aural experiments, including a listening meditation, a sound scavenger hunt, and an opportunity to hear how pop music sounds to a fish.

Schedule of Events

Ear of the Beholder

Foraging Circle, 6–8 pm
Equal parts bioacoustics and musique concrète, this activity’s playlist is created by guest Mark Bee, an animal communications scientist from the University of Minnesota. Test the recognition factor of popular songs that have been reinterpreted through the hearing apparatus of a fish, a cricket, or a frog.

Mindful Soundwalk

Meet at the Foraging Circle, 5:30 pm
Hear the sounds that surround us. Navigate the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden with Mark Nunberg, guiding teacher at Common Ground Meditation Center, to experience ways that the sense of hearing roots our awareness in space and time.

Talking Plants

Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, 6–8 pm
Plants can be great listeners, but have you ever considered their side of the conversation? Now you can hear what they’re thinking, thanks to Philip Blackburn’s brainwave-to-MIDI sensing device that translates micro-electrical activity into audible vegetable sounds.

The Soniferous Garden

Pamphlets available at the entrance to the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, 5–9 pm
Set out on an aural expedition guided by the poetic prompts of British vocalist, composer, and sound artist Viv Corringham. The Garden’s soundscape awaits your attentive exploration.

Wind Harps

Near Spoonbridge and Cherry, 5–9 pm
Artist and composer Philip Blackburn has taken an ancient concept—the Aeolian harp—and constructed contemporary instruments using fishing line, coat hangers, and cat food cans. Listen to the song of the weather as vibrations in the wires produce ever-shifting audible clouds of Platonic harmonies. The wind gods permitting, of course.